Hlungwani, J. (2017). Young women’s journey towards successful independent living after leaving residential care. Masters dissertation, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, RSA. (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
Among the many youth transitioning to young adulthood, a group that has been found to be particularly vulnerable is young people transitioning out of care, particularly residential care. Research on this population of youth has burgeoned over the past few decades, but in South Africa it remains limited. This article focuses on the resilience processes that facilitate better transitions of young women out of care and towards independent living. It replicates the research design of a previous study with young men, with the aim of determining to what extent the resilience process of young women are similar to those of men. A sample of nine women was purposively selected, interviewed in-depth and data analysed using grounded theory methods. The findings indicate that the same resilience process found among male care-leavers are evident also in the narratives of female care-leavers, confirming the findings of the previous study. However, these processes had a slightly stronger relational focus among women than was seen among men. The authors conclude that similar resilience-building programmes can be implemented to prepare both males and females for leaving care.
The vulnerability of those aging out of residential and foster care has become widely recognised in recent years. Much attention has been given to the structural measures required to buffer care-leavers from this vulnerability. However, the resilience of care-leavers is less well documented. This paper draws on data from those who have left the residential care of Girls and Boys Town in South Africa. Using grounded theory research, four social processes in which young men engage emerge. These include Striving for authentic belonging, Networking people for goal attainment, Contextual responsiveness and Building hopeful and tenacious self-confidence. This paper provides a brief overview of all four processes, followed by closer attention to the ways in which the study participants interact with their social environment to increase their resilience. The importance of addressing resilience at the interface between people and their environments, thus an ecological perspective, is emphasised.
This study contributes to the emerging body of South African literature on care leaving, as it explores the future selves and resilience factors of young people who are still in residential care and who are about to exit the statutory system. This is in contrast to the few other studies of care leaving in South Africa, which focus on the experiences of individuals after their discharge from care. This study also makes a contribution to the international discourse on care leaving, by adding a South African perspective on care leavers and their anticipated transition to adulthood. For young people who are aging out of the care system, their exit from residential care coincides with leaving high school and transitioning into adulthood. This is a time of great excitement and optimism for young people of this age. Unfortunately for care leavers their journey into adulthood frequently does not fulfil its promise, as the outlook for care leavers is poor and their transition from care is largely unsupported. This is particularly true in the South African context; unemployment and NEET (not in employment, education or training) rates among youth are high, and family and community contexts are characterised by poverty, substance abuse, violence and crime. Compounding these factors is the absence of legislation mandating services for care leavers. Service provision for this vulnerable group of young people is minimal and fragmented. Therefore, it may be argued that the time a young person spends in the care system should be aimed at maximising their life chances when they are discharged. In this regard, developing a young person’s resilience may be regarded as a critical element of service provision within the child and youth care centre. Future focus is regarded as a resilience factor, and this study argues that the development of the possible selves of young people while they are in care contributes to their resilience and may serve to improve the outcomes post discharge. The study argues too that developing resilience may also contribute to the emergence of possible selves in young people in care. The views of a small group of young people, who were shortly to exit the statutory system, of their futures, the content of their possible selves and resilience factors were explored in this research. The social workers and child and youth care workers who worked with these young people also contributed to this study, identifying resilience factors, and the successes and challenges they have experienced when facilitating young peoples’ transition from care. Thus the voices of the principal role players, at a critical and pivotal moment in the care system journey are brought to the fore in this research.
The vulnerability of care-leavers – those young people transitioning out of residential care – has been increasingly recognised by researchers internationally. Within the context of the widespread vulnerability of contemporary youth, those who enter and subsequently transition out of care are regarded as among the most vulnerable. This situation appears to be no less true in South Africa, though little research has been conducted on care-leavers. An important aspect of care-leaving research is tracking young people as they transition out of care and into young adulthood. This paper presents data on the first longitudinal study on care-leaving in South Africa. Seventeen young men who were about to leave the care of Girls & Boys Town South Africa at the end of 2012 were enrolled into the study and completed a battery of assessments of their individual, relational and community resilience. Fourteen of these men were followed up 12 and 24 months after leaving care, where they were assessed on a range of outcome variables, including accommodation, NEET, finances, drug and alcohol use, and well-being. The shifts in outcomes from 12 to 24 months are discussed.
The journey out of care and towards independent living is a challenge for many care-leavers. There has been little research into the social processes involved in this care-leaving journey. This paper presents the results of a grounded theory investigation into the care-leaving journeys of nine young men who had, several years previously, been in the care of Girls and Boys Town in South Africa. Working from a resilience perspective, with an ecological emphasis, four central social processes emerged that together explain the care-leaving experiences of the participants. These processes are: striving for authentic belonging; networking people for goal attainment; contextualised responsiveness; and building hopeful and tenacious self-confidence. These four processes are located within contextual boundaries and at the social environmental interface. The paper presents these processes in detail, drawing on selected narratives of the participants and integrated with additional theory. It is hoped that this paper may contribute to theory building concerning care-leaving processes and enhance youth care practices for youth in care and leaving care.
One of the important life transitions humans undergo is the transition from adolescence to young adulthood, called youth transitions. One group of young people for whom this is a particularly difficult transition is those transitioning out of the child welfare system towards independent living. These youth experience a range of vulnerabilities that tend to result in poor outcomes compared with youth who grew up at home. However, not all care-leavers experience poor outcomes, raising the question of what facilitates better outcomes among some care-leavers. This is the classic resilience question and is the focus of my research over the past several years. Resilience theory seeks to understand the multilevel processes that systems engage in to obtain better-than-expected outcomes in the face or wake of adversity. Resilience processes or enablers are often categorized as either personal or environmental, but drawing on the social work notion of person-in-environment, I argue that the interactions between people and people, and between people and systems, are the resilience-enabling mechanisms that are the foundation of the resilience and that contribute to resilient outcomes. In this lecture, I mobilise much of my research opus, particularly my work over the past several years on leaving care, together with my students and research associates, to provide empirical support to the construct of interactional resilience, and to showing the contribution that interactional resilience makes to improved care-leaving outcomes. Based on this platform, I propose an interactional resilience model for South African care-leavers, that I suggest may be applicable to all youth transitions. In light of this, I make recommendations for social service delivery and for further research and theory building on interactional resilience.
The journey out of residential care towards independent living in South Africa is significantly under-researched. This article draws on data from the only longitudinal study on care-leaving in South Africa. It uses resilience theory to explain the differences observed in independent living outcomes of care-leavers, one year after leaving the residential care of Girls and Boys Town. A sample of 52 young people completed the Youth Ecological Resilience Scale just before disengaging from care between 2012 and 2015 and participated in a follow-up interview one year later, focused on assessing a range of independent living outcomes. Nonparametric bivariate analyses were used to determine which resilience variables predicted better outcomes for the care-leavers. The results reveal that resilience processes help to understand transitional outcomes related to housing, education, employment, well-being and relationships with family and friends. The most prominent resilience processes for promoting better outcomes are located in the person-in-environment domains of the social environment (community safety, family financial security and social activities) and social relationships (with family, friends and community), with fewer in the interactional (teamwork) and personal (optimism) domains, and, surprisingly , none in the in-care service domain. This supports a social-ecological view of resilience, and has important implications for child and youth care practice.
Journal of Youth Studies, 2014
The journey out of care and towards independent living is a challenge for many care-leavers. There has been little research into the social processes involved in this care-leaving journey. This paper presents the results of a grounded theory investigation into the care-leaving journeys of nine young men who had, several years previously, been in the care of Girls and Boys Town in South Africa. Working from a resilience perspective, with an ecological emphasis, four central social processes emerged that together explain the care-leaving experiences of the participants. These processes are: striving for authentic belonging; networking people for goal attainment; contextualised responsiveness; and building hopeful and tenacious self-confidence. These four processes are located within contextual boundaries and at the social environmental interface. The paper presents these processes in detail, drawing on selected narratives of the participants and integrated with additional theory. It is hoped that this paper may contribute to theory building concerning care-leaving processes and enhance youth care practices for youth in care and leaving care.
Longitudinal research on young people leaving the residential care of Girls and Boys Town South Africa reveals layers of vulnerability at 12 and 24 months post care. These layers relate to their pre-care life experiences that led them into care, against the backdrop of the universal vulnerability of young people in South Africa. After leaving care, study participants show no significant improvements in independent living outcomes between 12 and 24 months. However, the data also reveal layers of resilience, notably a cluster of several resilience variables that predict better transitional outcomes. Most prominent among these are relational resilience factors, particularly the youths' relationship with an adult role model.